Dr. Adam Kalkstein, who taught science at West Point for 17 years, says he was abruptly instructed last year to remove instruction on human‑caused climate change from his courses, as detailed in a recent lawsuit filed against the U.S. Military Academy.
He described the directive as immoral and possibly illegal in a conversation with Brig. Gen. Shane R. Reeves, then dean of West Point. He said the requirement made him feel like a liar and a fraud, contrary to Army values.
According to the complaint, General Reeves left the room after Dr. Kalkstein refused a suggestion to resign. Six months later, the tenured professor was informed that his contract would not be renewed.
The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that West Point violated Dr. Kalkstein’s First Amendment rights by prohibiting him from teaching about human‑driven climate change — a requirement he says forced him to omit a fundamental scientific element and defy science. Representatives from the Pentagon, West Point, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Michael Sussman, Dr. Kalkstein’s attorney, noted that the professor, a conservative Republican, argues that the military must be educated on the genuine causes of climate change for national security reasons. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Dr. Kalkstein emphasized that understanding global warming is vital for strategic objectives such as competing with Russia in the Arctic and assessing sea‑ice melt, not for social‑justice motives.
‘He is loyal to the cadets and the academy,’ Sussman said. ‘In his view, directives that prevent him from stating scientific truths in the classroom exceed his tolerance and are wholly counterproductive.’
Dr. Kalkstein’s case reflects a broader pattern of the Trump administration seeking to impose conservative cultural changes on education. President Trump has repeatedly dismissed scientific consensus on climate change, and his administration has labeled federal and international climate programs as “woke, weaponized, and wasteful,” alongside diversity, equity, inclusion, and transgender policies.
The administration has also targeted the military for cultural change. Last year it banned hundreds of books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s libraries that did not align with President Trump’s political agenda; a Defense Department spokesman later said many of those books were returned.
In May, Judge Cathy Seibel of the U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York, ruled for another West Point professor, Tim Bakken — the academy’s longest‑serving law professor — who had challenged a new restriction that limited his ability to express opinions to students on the subjects he teaches.
The lawsuit follows Mr. Hegseth’s effort to overhaul the service academies by drastically reducing the number of civilian faculty and revising curricula. A draft Pentagon memo circulated this summer claimed that civilian academic norms were undermining the academies’ “focus on lethality.” CBS News first reported the memo’s existence.
The memo argued that tenure had caused the academies to prioritize the research interests of tenured faculty over military needs, and it called for a comprehensive review of the operational relevance of all course offerings.
In his 2024 book *The War on Warriors*, Mr. Hegseth described the academies as “Marxist‑adjacent” and attributed the shift to civilian professors.
‘Civilian professors were welcomed for reasons of “diversity” and expediency, and with them came predictable, radical left‑wing educational philosophies,’ Mr. Hegseth wrote.
Critics argue that civilian professors have enhanced and broadened instruction at the academies, which is essential for cultivating agile thinkers needed to win wars.
